If the equipement today is so good, why good recordings of the classical music are so rare ?
I think, that todays equipement is to complex, they are using to many microphones for the recordings. To many microphone are causing "phase" errors and one 12 or 24 channels mixer is worse than 2 or 3 channels mixer build with the same components. Also the use of tubes in the older recordings has benefits.
I am visiting often good classical concerts and sometimes it is recorded, than i am counting the microphones and when the orchester is bigger they are using up to ~60 !!! microphones. Absolut crazy. It means they have ~60 channels mixing and between each microphone there is some time delay, some phase difference.
For me it seems, that something like Decca tree
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decca_tree
or ORTF
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ORTF_stereo_technique
can deliver the best performance.
Naim Audio for their "True Stereo" recordings is using only two microphones going directly into two tracks Nagra 4s.
They are also many other small labels using similar simple technique and getting better results than big labels with their "overkill" XX-channels hardware.
good recordings aren't rare. I know what ORTF, NOS, Blumlein, XY, Jecklin, Faulkner Phased, etc are.. ive been recording classical (and other) music for a decade or so. The bottom line is that You do what the job requires, and not box yourself in to some arbitrary notion of "audiophile sound". or assume that a recording has a certain sound because "they used XXX equipment". Phase errors can be avoided if time is taken to properly set up, and the mics are time aligned, etc.
If you went to a major orchestra and told them that you were using some silly "purist stereo" technique to a terribly outdated 1/4 inch tape machine, youd get fired and probably never work again. The guys back then HAD to work that way and you can bet anything that if they had all the stuff available that we do now, thered be a lot more than 2-3 mics flying.
Tony Faulkner, Da Hong Seeto, Hudson Fair, Simon Eadon, Andreas Neubronner, Peter Langer, King, Teije Van Geest....all these men make fantastic modern recordings, and in ways that have little or nothing to do with how things used to be done.
Time has marched on. Turntables, Tape Machines, and Vinyl.... don't have a place in classical recording IMO. Which is why noone uses em for that purpose.
some tube mics sound great, but it is a bit illogical to assume that just because a microphone has some tube in it that it will automatically be better.
There aren't any benefits for "tubes" in recordings. There are benefits for good microphones...whether SS or tube.
it is wise to let go of nostalgia and entrenched notions and evolve with technology. Classical engineers have evolved a LONG way from how things used to be....
the "decca tree" gets bounced around a lot...but the thing is , it isn't any set /specified "technique". It varied..